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vintage muslin

When I was little my mom enjoyed candlewicking. If you're not familiar, it's a form of embroidery that is stitched with white or cream thread on matching fabric, and uses lots and lots of colonial knots (a cousin of the french knot!) to form designs.

As I was pulling something out of my mom's stash the other day, I found a package of muslin. Clearly it was left from the candlewicking days, which dates this fabric back to the 80s. I like stitching on muslin, so I pulled it out (asked mom first!) and gave it a try.

Wow! This is not like the muslin that I find around these days! This is some really nice fabric. Part of it may be that it came out of the package feeling like it has been starched (a topic for another day), but there's something more.

You can see the lovely texture, and you can see how thick it is from the photos. It's still thin enough to see through just a bit, but nothing like the stuff I get now. Or maybe I'm wrong?

Has muslin fabric changed over the years, at least in the United States? When I was in England, I looked at what they refer to as calico. (To my UK friends, calico here in the States is a small printed fabric!) The calico/muslin in the UK was similar to what I just found.

I tried stitching on it, and it made me love it even more! So pleasant to work with. Tight weave, but easy to pull multiple strands of floss through. Once it got wet from soaking the traced pattern off, it lost it's smooth stiff texture (making me think it was starched), but it was still so nice. Hmm...I think I'll be rationing this find!

So tell me...what has been your experience working with muslin? Do you have a favorite kind or a place where you find the "good stuff"?

Oh, and the stitching I tried this out with? Well, that's gonna stay a secret for a while...

8 comments:

I have been doing a start/stop project since my first days of embroidery and was just whining to my husband about how thin the fabric is (muslin). I have tried a bunch of different fabrics, but my favorite is the older-than-vintage sheets and pillow cases that have a thick feel - the ones that have been washed just short of a million times. I'm assuming, since there is no label, that they are 100% cotton. I'm no expert on fabrics, though. Maybe "linens" are actually linen? :)

There is a difference in the fabrics you get now. If you get an old pillowcase or tablecloth kit and compare it to one made now, the fabric is a lot thicker and holds up better to multiple washings (at least I think so). Even the older cloth from the bolt is thicker than the cloth they make now. Maybe they just make it thinner to keep the price down? or maybe we're just getting taken to the cleaners LOL.

I have always loved the simplicity of muslin. Cutains have been made from muslin many, many times in our homes. They are inexpensive and a wonderful blank "canvas". I have made muslin curtains with deep drawn thread embroidered hems. I find muslin the perfect background for redwork. But when I started doing these kinds of embroidery in the 70's muslin was so cheap but it sill was quality. When you prewashed it, it did not come out a little ball that you couldn't even iron out the wrinkles of. I assure you the quality has gone way downhill in the last 40 years. Treasure your find!

I just finished a piece which used muslin. I get mine in Canada (where I live) but it seems to be heavy and not too thin. This is an inexpensive fabric that the local university fashion design department picks up by the bolt load. I get it from them.

If you want really good quality muslin, go to your local quilt shop and get "quilter's muslin". It is more expensive, but the quality is much better. I don't buy fabrics from the big name fabric shops anymore at all. It is simply inferior. You really do get what you pay for.

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